Duh catch!
Roger is just wrong and there will be no further review
ROGER Goodell handed out severe discipline in Spy Gate and Bounty-Gate to protect the integrity of the game. But as he allows the NFL, a $9.5 billion-a-year business, to implode over a labor dispute with 120 part-time employees making an average of $149,000 per year, it’s Goodell and the billionaire NFL owners who need to be punished for Zebra-Gate.
Goodell, the owners and the fake zebras aren’t just ruining the 2012 season, they are ruining the NFL. The regular officials, inflexible on the key pension/401k issue, must share in the blame.
The NFL prides itself on having the best of everything. The best players, the best coaches, the best stadiums, so how does it get three weeks deep into a new season with the worst officials?
Can it get any lower than Monday night in Seattle when the NFL was humiliated with the wrong team winning? Goodell and his negotiating team were meeting Tuesday with the NFL Referees Association in a session that was already planned before replacement side judge Lance Easley and referee Wayne Elliott starred in Clueless in Seattle.
Big surprise, the league office had their backs Tuesday.
If all the angry voice mails left at NFL offices and nasty tweets to Goodell aren’t enough, maybe this message from President Obama will wake up everybody:
“I’ve been saying for months, we got to get our refs back.”
When the league locked out the officials in June, Goodell and the owners must have figured they would cave before the season started, just like the players did 136 days into the lockout of 2011. No chance Goodell thought it would be nearly October a nd he would have Division III officials and Lingerie Football League rejects as the keepers of the game on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.
Instead, the most successful sports league in the world with 20 of the 32 teams valued by Forbes at $1 billion or more is melting down right before our eyes. The games have become unwatchable, but we can’t take our eyes off them. The NFL is a train wreck. If Goodell and the owners were waiting for the officials to finally blow a game before they felt a sense of urgency, well, fellas, the time has arrived.
Giants co-owner John Mara, who has taken over for his father as the conscience of the NFL and was instrumental in bringing an end to the player lockout, needs to step up and force the issue. What about Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who cared so much about the game he left the bedside of his dying wife — with her blessing — to spend time at the bargaining table last summer? Kraft never would have become so rich if he ran his businesses like the NFL is being run now. How about Jerry Jones? Where is he? He said he fel l a sleep at halftime Monday night and didn’t know about the meltdown until morning. If Jones went with replacement oil drillers, he never would have struck the mother l ode and been able to buy the Cowboys.
Does Goodell want this to be his legacy? He in undated the NFL with job applications i n the early ’ 80s until they hired him for an entrylevel position. He told his father his goal was to become commissioner. Okay, he’s got his dream job, so how can he turn the game over to underqualified officials who call the teams by their jersey colors instead of their city or names – it was red, not Falcons, the previous Monday night — and throw a flag on every pass play.
If the events of Monday night i n Seattle don’t convince Goodell and the owners to bring sanity back to the game, then they will just reemphasize all they care about is making more money and all his talk about protecting the shield and the integrity of the game is nothing more than commissioner speak.
Russell Wilson’s Hail Mary to Golden Tate on the final play Monday night was clearly intercepted by Green Bay’s M.D. Jennings, who pinned the ball against his chest as Tate tried to wrap his arms around it. The next picture we saw was humiliating: Easley signaling touchdown and back judge Derrick Rhone-Dunn standing right next to him signaling touchback.
The NFL conceded Tuesday that Tate pushed off and sent Packers cornerback Sam Shields to the ground.
“This should have been a penalty for offensive pass interference, which would have ended the game,” t he league said in a statement. “It was not called and is not reviewable in instant replay.”
When Jennings and Tate hit the ground, the officials ruled simultaneous possession. The tie goes to the offense. The play was reviewed. Elliott ruled there was not indisputable visual evidence to overturn the call. The league office, including vice president of officiating Carl Johnson, reviewed the play Tuesday and agreed with Elliott.
Now, that’s a surprise: A coverup in Zebra-Gate
“The result of the game is final,” the league said. Why are these officials so bad? Why didn’t the NFL at least hire replacement officials from the major college conferences? In the last 10 years, conferences such as the Big Ten and SEC have hired NFL officials to also work as their supervisor of officials. Clearly, none of the officials from these conferences wants to walk onto an NFL field to take the job of their bosses, fearing retribution in the form of reduced college assignments.
The NFL has a crisis, which everyone seems to know but them.